


Ruby

by SharpestRose



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weddings and an extra love story, perhaps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruby

Love among gentlehobbits, as far as Sam could see, seemed to be the same old acquisitional mergers, financial agreements, and all the other distasteful legalities that so concerned the wealthy and the greedy, only with a sprinkling of awkward romancing thrown into the mix as extra.

Of course, it was just as easy to say that farm folk were only interested in a wriggle in the hay and having someone about to cook the breakfasts in the mornings, but at least Sam had witnessed all the other things that went along with marriages of that sort. There was just as much mooning about and poeticising in most of the courtships Sam had seen his sisters dabble in as in any Elven story. And there was a lot to be said for breakfast-cooking, really.

So perhaps he was being overharsh, thinking so little of the way the richer families went about getting their young ones wed. After all, Sam had hardly seen enough examples to go by, what with Mr Frodo never paying much mind to the sisters, cousins, and daughters that all the local landowners introduced to him at parties. And it wouldn't have been fair to any custom to judge it by the current scene.

"Angelica." Mr Frodo was trying to hold a sigh in, keeping his voice polite and cordial, even if he couldn't quite manage cheery. "There are a dozen clever seamstresses within an afternoon's walk of your front door. Any one of them would be happy to make you a gown with as much beading as your heart desires, and I can give you the cost of such a dress at this very moment."

Angelica's face showed no sign of gratitude at the offer, but Angelica's face rarely showed anything except smooth skin and a plump pout. She was lovely to look at, being near the fairest in a fair family, but her petal mouth never smiled easy and her delicate nose didn't have the look of one that scrunched with laughter on a regular basis. Her long sandy lashes blinked down over the siamese-cat eyes so common in the Bagginses and so rare in other folk, and she shook her head.

"No, a new dress simply won't do. The dress Bilbo's mother wore would still be in fine condition, seeing as he never had a bride to wear it out. Vintage is all the rage now, you see, and terribly fashionable."

Sam, from his vantage point by the kettle, could see Mr Frodo's thoughts as clear as if they were written out on paper. A flicker of a laugh kept in, annoyance held back by a civil tongue, exasperation. Frodo eventually took a deep breath, and spoke in the measured tones of the weary.

"Belladonna's dress was for a summer wedding, and the fabric hasn't kept for one hundred and twenty years. It wouldn't have been to your taste at any rate, it was a simple and elegant gown with little in the way of overdecoration."

Sam had to touch his fingers to the hot kettle to keep from laughing, but Angelica didn't catch the barb in Frodo's words. Sam poured the tea and carried it to the kitchen table - Frodo preferred the gentle warmth of that room to the airless dignity of the parlour (a result, Sam had no doubt, of his master's young years as a Brandybuck), and didn't seem to notice Angelica's insulted pride at the location her visit was received in.

"Thankyou, Sam," Mr Frodo picked up his tea and blew a curl of steam off it. Angelica took her own cup without a word and Sam thought it a pity that Frodo could not escape beneath her notice as easily.

Sam could understand why Mr Bilbo and now Mr Frodo had never sought to make a match for themselves, at least not with lasses like that Angelica. Things were much simpler when a hobbit knew that it wasn't his pocketbook being flirted with. What Mr Frodo needed was somebody who didn't care a whit for gold or jools, perhaps a Brandybuck or a Took. Or even a Brown or a Cotton or a Hornblower, those families were respectable enough to wed a Baggins, and as sensible as they came.

The garden was a breath of air after the mood indoors, the roses and pansies and nasturtians simpler to tend to than the demands of a spoilt young hobbit lass (and prettier, too, if only because the flowers didn't know that they were lovely as Angelica did), and when he was back outside with his hands in the soil Sam felt that he wouldn't trade lots with Frodo for all the leaf in the farthing.

The visit went on for a while longer and then, mercifully, Angelica left with a small suede bag (that exactly matched the trim on her hat) full of silver.

"Is it wrong to be exasperated by relations, Sam?" Frodo asked, watching Angelica's retreat down the hill as if he'd half a mind to throw mud after her.

"Well, it don't seem charitable, but if I were in a family with Miss Angelica I might change my mind, if you follow me," Sam said. Frodo laughed.

"Ever the diplomat, Sam, aren't you?" He sat down on the step and drew out his pipe. "Can you pause a moment for a chat, or would I be keeping you from joy quite selfishly?"

Sam stammered a few words of clumsy denial and then fell quiet, content to be the subject of his master's gentle teasing.

"There's a wedding in your family coming up soon as well, isn't there?"

"Aye, our May's marrying Tom Noakes in a month. Good for them both, from where I see it. No sister o' mine is going to bend her back crooked cutting peat for miserly fires, and Tom's a generous sort in that regard."

Frodo chewed on the end of his pipe, nodding thoughtfully at the words. "Does she have a dress made yet?"

"Ah," Sam chuckled. "I don't mean to offend, sir, and I hope you won't think us Gamgees a bad sort on account of this, but May's leaving off cutting the pattern until the day gets close, lest the dress end up too tight for her."

Frodo laughed. "Congratulations are in order then, Sam. A more doting uncle a child couldn't wish for, if your patient ways with me are anything to go by. Come inside for a moment, I think I may have something your sister can get some use out of."

Puzzled and slightly curious, Sam followed Frodo to one of Bag End's spacious storerooms. It smelt, not unpleasantly, like dried herbs and dusty paper.

Frodo lifted a few boxes out of the way, uncovering an old trunk in one corner.

"Here we are," he said, lifting out a carefully folded gown of pale green muslin, the hem and collar traced with ivy patterns.

"My aunt Dora was born shortly after my grandparents wed," Frodo explained. "So this should fit May nicely."

"Oh, Mr Frodo, we couldn't ask for the dress of your grandmother!" Sam protested, though it was a pretty thing and May would be over the moon if she knew. It might make old Hiro Noakes hold his tongue, too, to see that Gamgees could scrub up just fine, and that his son wasn't falling in with a bad crew. In a dress like that, May would look as sweet as fresh cream.

"Well, you didn't ask. I offered." Frodo gently smoothed down a crease on the bodice and handed the bundle over to Sam. "I'd rather May and her Tom get the use out of it, and I wish them all the luck I can't bring myself to bestow on Angelica and her twit of a fiance. Come into the kitchen, I've eaten so many tea-cakes and scones that if I don't get some carrots and mushrooms into me my bones will turn to flour."

Sam folded the dress carefully and put it aside, fixing up a bowl of stew for Mr Frodo and buttering a crust of bread to go with it. Frodo liked the crusts the best, usually Sam made an extra loaf in the mornings so that there'd be enough crusts to last the day. It meant there was usually enough left over to make bread and butter pudding for supper, too, which Frodo always let Sam take most of down the hill to his family.

"What was your grandmother like, sir?" asked Sam as Frodo ate and Sam got a start on the washing up, curious to hear about the original owner of such a fine and uncommon garment.

"She was famous in from Pincup to Hobbiton for her red hair. Vivid as fire from the day she was born I've been told, though of course I only saw it white. Named Ruby, for that hair. Come over here to talk to me, Sam, I'm not in the habit of addressing people's backs."

"Ruby's a right pretty name for a lass," agreed Sam, drying his hands and sitting down at the table.

"Well then it suited her, for she was right pretty herself." Frodo smiled. "When Bilbo was a tween all the young folk fell in love with her, even though she was a mother of tweens herself by that time."

"Not Mr Bilbo, surely?"

"Yes, Sam, even Mr Bilbo," Frodo said with a hearty laugh. "You looked quite scandalised, then. There are some ridiculously florid poems in with his old papers, dedicated to 'my lady of the blood-bright tresses', if you can believe it."

"I'm not sure that I can, begging pardon. It seems so unlike him is all."

"The heart rarely does what we expect of it, Sam." Frodo's voice was soft, as if he was thinking of something that was happy and sad all at once. Then he was his usual self again. "Now, we'll hang that dress out to air for a while, and you can take it down to May this evening, all right?"

"Don't you want to come give it to her yourself, sir?" Sam asked in surprise.

"You don't want a boring old bachelor like me cluttering up the place when you've got a wedding and a birth to look forward to," protested Frodo.

"Yes I do!" Sam blurted, before lowering his voice. "You're always welcome down Bagshot Row, sir. Come down and have a drink with the Gaffer and wish May her luck yourself... I ain't saying that my skill with a pot and pan are lacking, but my sisters could cook a mud pie so fine you'd ask for seconds."

"Well," laughed Frodo. "I don't see how I could turn down an offer like that!"

Evening came quickly, Sam was quite surprised when he looked up from a group of troublesome weeds to find the sky losing light. The two of them walked down to Bagshot Row in companionable silence, Frodo looking out at the silhouette of the forest against the red-tinted clouds with a pondering cast to his features.

"That's the last of your sisters to be spoken for, isn't it, Sam?" he asked. Sam nodded.

"Yes, sir. And brothers are both married, too. It'll just be me and the Gaffer in number three, once May's wed. Marigold's not so far, her and her Tom are just up in number eight, but it's the feel of the thing. I'm not fond of empty spaces."

"I find myself tiring of them, lately," Frodo agreed, his voice once again taking on that soft sort of wistfulness Sam had heard in the kitchen. Sam realised what he'd said and blushed something fierce, ashamed to have said something that would sound like he was criticising how Mr Frodo lived.

"Bag End's roomy but it has a cosiness to it," he offered. "With just one or two other folks in there, it would feel right full up."

"Maybe someday, Sam," Frodo said, and smiled, and Sam got the feeling that there was a joke he wasn't quite catching in the air.

They continued walking together, Sam carrying the muslin dress carefully over one arm and Frodo's hands holding a pot of fresh bread and butter pudding, and Sam mused to himself about love and courtship.


End file.
